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A Map to the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine
Up to 8,000 people each year go hunting for a legendary gold mine, guided by cryptic maps like these.
The Superstition Mountains to the east of Phoenix, AZ reportedly hold a legendary motherlode of gold known as the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. Through the years, truth and fiction about this mine have been irrevokably mixed up, producing 62 varieties of the legend. Before we get into those, here are some genuine facts about the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine:
There really was a Lost Dutchman, although he wasn't Dutch. Jakob Waltz was nicknamed Dutch (i.e. from the Netherlands) because he was Deutsch (i.e. from Germany; a common error, see also 'Pennsylvania Dutch'). A man of that name was born in Württemberg in 1810 and emigrated to the U.S. From the 1860s onward, he homesteaded in Arizona, pursuing mining and prospecting as a hobby – a quite unsuccessful one. Waltz fell ill and died in 1891, but not before revealing the location of an alleged gold mine to Julia Thomas, the neighbour who cared for him. As early as Sept 1, 1892, a local newspaper relates how Thomas and others were trying to locate the mine. When they failed, it is reported they sold copies of a map for $7 each. After about a decade, the story sank into obscurity, regaining notoriety when it had acquired more spectacular aspects, in a fashion not dissimilar to a game of Chinese whispers.
The Lost Dutchman Mine is the most famous in American history. Quite literally so, according to Southwestern Folklore author and researcher Byrd Granger. In 1977, Granger noted that the Lost Dutchman story was printed at least 6 times more often than the story of Captain Kidd's lost treasure or the story of the Lost Pegleg Mine in California.
The Lost Dutchman Mine is also the most sought after in American history. Attempts have been made to locate it at least since 1892. Some 8,000 people each year try to find it. And not just crackpots: former attorney general of Arizona Bob Corbin was one of the many mine-seekers.
Granger distinguished three main elements to the story, with the most complete version of the story incorporating all three legends. He argued that each of these three legends contains some truth, but have become badly distorted through time. The legend continues to evolve: recent additions are versions in which the gold is really a secret treasure trove of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Confederate secret society active during the American Civil War (1861-1864).
A cryptic map of the gold mine, or just a fake?
True or not, the legend of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine continues to fascinate the public. This post card is a humourous version of the many serious treasure maps that undoubtedly circulated in Arizona and environs at the height of gold mine fever, at the end of the 19th century.
Strange Maps #63
Got a strange map? Let me know at email@example.com.
Malcolm Gladwell live | How to re-examine everything you know
Join Radiolab's Latif Nasser at 1pm ET today as he chats with Malcolm Gladwell live on Big Think.
There are 5 eras in the universe's lifecycle. Right now, we're in the second era.
Astronomers find these five chapters to be a handy way of conceiving the universe's incredibly long lifespan.
- We're in the middle, or thereabouts, of the universe's Stelliferous era.
- If you think there's a lot going on out there now, the first era's drama makes things these days look pretty calm.
- Scientists attempt to understand the past and present by bringing together the last couple of centuries' major schools of thought.
The 5 eras of the universe
There are many ways to consider and discuss the past, present, and future of the universe, but one in particular has caught the fancy of many astronomers. First published in 1999 in their book The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity, Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin divided the universe's life story into five eras:

Primordial era

Stellferous era

Degenerate era

Black Hole Era

Dark era

The book was last updated according to current scientific understandings in 2013.

It's worth noting that not everyone is a subscriber to the book's structure. Popular astrophysics writer Ethan C. Siegel, for example, published an article on Medium last June called "We Have Already Entered The Sixth And Final Era Of Our Universe." Nonetheless, many astronomers find the quintet a useful way of discuss such an extraordinarily vast amount of time.

The Primordial era
Image source: Sagittarius Production/Shutterstock
 This is where the universe begins, though what came before it and where it came from are certainly still up for discussion. It begins at the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.

 For the first little, and we mean very little, bit of time, spacetime and the laws of physics are thought not yet to have existed. That weird, unknowable interval is the Planck Epoch that lasted for 10-44 seconds, or 10 million of a trillion of a trillion of a trillionth of a second. Much of what we currently believe about the Planck Epoch eras is theoretical, based largely on a hybrid of general-relativity and quantum theories called quantum gravity. And it's all subject to revision.

 That having been said, within a second after the Big Bang finished Big Banging, inflation began, a sudden ballooning of the universe into 100 trillion trillion times its original size.

 Within minutes, the plasma began cooling, and subatomic particles began to form and stick together. In the 20 minutes after the Big Bang, atoms started forming in the super-hot, fusion-fired universe. Cooling proceeded apace, leaving us with a universe containing mostly 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, similar to that we see in the Sun today. Electrons gobbled up photons, leaving the universe opaque.

 About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe had cooled enough that the first stable atoms capable of surviving began forming. With electrons thus occupied in atoms, photons were released as the background glow that astronomers detect today as cosmic background radiation.

 Inflation is believed to have happened due to the remarkable overall consistency astronomers measure in cosmic background radiation. Astronomer Phil Plait suggests that inflation was like pulling on a bedsheet, suddenly pulling the universe's energy smooth. The smaller irregularities that survived eventually enlarged, pooling in denser areas of energy that served as seeds for star formation—their gravity pulled in dark matter and matter that eventually coalesced into the first stars.

The Stelliferous era
Image source: Casey Horner/unsplash
The era we know, the age of stars, in which most matter existing in the universe takes the form of stars and galaxies during this active period.

A star is formed when a gas pocket becomes denser and denser until it, and matter nearby, collapse in on itself, producing enough heat to trigger nuclear fusion in its core, the source of most of the universe's energy now. The first stars were immense, eventually exploding as supernovas, forming many more, smaller stars. These coalesced, thanks to gravity, into galaxies.

One axiom of the Stelliferous era is that the bigger the star, the more quickly it burns through its energy, and then dies, typically in just a couple of million years. Smaller stars that consume energy more slowly stay active longer. In any event, stars — and galaxies — are coming and going all the time in this era, burning out and colliding.

Scientists predict that our Milky Way galaxy, for example, will crash into and combine with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years to form a new one astronomers are calling the Milkomeda galaxy.

Our solar system may actually survive that merger, amazingly, but don't get too complacent. About a billion years later, the Sun will start running out of hydrogen and begin enlarging into its red giant phase, eventually subsuming Earth and its companions, before shrining down to a white dwarf star.

The Degenerate era
Image source: Diego Barucco/Shutterstock/Big Think
Next up is the Degenerate era, which will begin about 1 quintillion years after the Big Bang, and last until 1 duodecillion after it. This is the period during which the remains of stars we see today will dominate the universe. Were we to look up — we'll assuredly be outta here long before then — we'd see a much darker sky with just a handful of dim pinpoints of light remaining: white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, and neutron stars. These"degenerate stars" are much cooler and less light-emitting than what we see up there now. Occasionally, star corpses will pair off into orbital death spirals that result in a brief flash of energy as they collide, and their combined mass may become low-wattage stars that will last for a little while in cosmic-timescale terms. But mostly the skies will be be bereft of light in the visible spectrum.

During this era, small brown dwarfs will wind up holding most of the available hydrogen, and black holes will grow and grow and grow, fed on stellar remains. With so little hydrogen around for the formation of new stars, the universe will grow duller and duller, colder and colder.

And then the protons, having been around since the beginning of the universe will start dying off, dissolving matter, leaving behind a universe of subatomic particles, unclaimed radiation…and black holes.

The Black Hole era
Image source: Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock/Big Think
 For a considerable length of time, black holes will dominate the universe, pulling in what mass and energy still remain.

 Eventually, though, black holes evaporate, albeit super-slowly, leaking small bits of their contents as they do. Plait estimates that a small black hole 50 times the mass of the sun would take about 1068 years to dissipate. A massive one? A 1 followed by 92 zeros.

 When a black hole finally drips to its last drop, a small pop of light occurs letting out some of the only remaining energy in the universe. At that point, at 1092, the universe will be pretty much history, containing only low-energy, very weak subatomic particles and photons.

The Dark Era
Image source: Big Think
We can sum this up pretty easily. Lights out. Forever.

Ever wonder how LSD works? An answer has been discovered.
UNC School of Medicine researchers identified the amino acid responsible for the trip.
- Researchers at UNC's School of Medicine have discovered the protein responsible for LSD's psychedelic effects.
- A single amino acid—part of the protein, Gαq—activates the mind-bending experience.
- The researchers hope this identification helps shape depression treatment.
What is Bicycle Day?
Back in the world of clinical science, LSD has always showed promise. That trend continues as restrictions are finally easing up. Understanding LSD's effects on our brain's complex system of networks is an important step toward discovering therapeutic actions. As Roth says of his research,

"Now we know how psychedelic drugs work – finally! Now we can use this information to, hopefully, discover better medications for many psychiatric diseases."

Using X-ray crystallography, Roth's team discovered a single amino acid—a building block of the protein, Gαq—responsible for binding to serotonin receptors. As LSD is only a partial agonist, they also experimented with a full-agonist designer psychedelic in order to observe complete receptor activation. This amino acid appears to be the master switch for the psychedelic experience.

While psilocybin has been in the news, the psychedelic renaissance is expanding in all directions. Phase 1 clinical trials on the combination of LSD, MDMA, and psychotherapy will soon commence. LSD's effects on Major Depressive Disorder and pain management are ongoing. With the first psychedelics company to IPO on the American stock market, along with hundreds of millions of dollars of investment flowing into similar companies and organizations, the push for legalized psychedelics intensifies.

Credit: ynsga / Shutterstock
Researchers are actively attempting to remove the hallucinogenic component of psychedelics for widespread therapeutic usage—trials using ibogaine for addiction treatment, for example. Identifying the chemical effects of psychedelics on our brains is an essential step in that process.

Of course, believing psychedelics only matters to brain chemistry is problematic as well. The rituals associated with their use are just as relevant. The "set and setting" model espoused by Timothy Leary reminds us that biology isn't everything; environmental factors play just as important a role in mental health.

Isolating specific chemicals without understanding the impact of the drug and the environment overlooks the holistic nature of the psychedelic experience. For example, ketamine trials were rushed and could potentially backfire; we can't afford to make that mistake again.

Still, understanding the pathways LSD utilizes is an important step forward. As Roth says, "Our ultimate goal is to see if we can discover medications which are effective, like psilocybin, for depression but do not have the intense psychedelic actions." In a world where more people are growing anxious and depressed by the day, every intervention should be explored.

 --

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter, Facebook and Substack. His next book is "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."

Scientists uncover the brain circuitry that causes mysterious dissociative experiences
A team of researchers have discovered the brain rhythmic activity that can split us from reality.
- Researchers have identified the key rhythmic brain activity that triggers a bizarre experience called dissociation in which people can feel detached from their identity and environment.
- This phenomena is experienced by about 2 percent to 10 percent of the population. Nearly 3 out of 4 individuals who have experienced a traumatic event will slip into a dissociative state either during the event or sometime after.
- The findings implicate a specific protein in a certain set of cells as key to the feeling of dissociation, and it could lead to better-targeted therapies for conditions in which dissociation can occur.
What is dissociation?
Dissociation is an experience commonly described as a feeling of sudden detachment from the individual's identity and environment, almost like an out-of-body experience. This mysterious phenomena is experienced by about 2 percent to 10 percent of the population.

"This state often manifests as the perception of being on the outside looking in at the cockpit of the plane that's your body or mind — and what you're seeing you just don't consider to be yourself," explained senior author Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, in a Stanford Medicine news release. Deisseroth is a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, as well as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Nearly three-quarters of individuals who have experienced a traumatic event will slip into a dissociative state either during the event or in the hours or even weeks that follow, according to Deisseroth. Most of the time, the dissociative experiences end on their own within a few weeks of the trauma. But the eerie experience can become chronic, such as in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, and extremely disruptive in daily life. The state of dissociation can also occur in epilepsy and be invoked by certain drugs.

Until now, no one has known what exactly is going on inside the brain triggering and sustaining the feeling of dissociation — and so it has been a challenge to figure out how to stop it and develop effective treatments.

New Research: The Molecular Underpinnings of Dissociation
Neurons from a mouse spinal cord
Credit: NICHD on Flickr
Last week, in a study published in Nature, Deisseroth and his colleagues at Stanford University uncovered a localized brain rhythm and molecule that underlies this state.

"This study has identified brain circuitry that plays a role in a well-defined subjective experience," said Deisseroth. "Beyond its potential medical implications, it gets at the question, 'What is the self?' That's a big one in law and literature, and important even for our own introspections."

The authors' findings implicate a specific protein existing in a particular set of cells as key to the feeling of dissociation.

The research team first used a technique called widefield calcium imaging to record brain-wide neuronal activity in lab mice. They observed and analyzed changes in those brain rhythms after the animals had been administered a range of drugs that are known to cause dissociative states: ketamine, phencyclidine (PCP), and dizocilpine (MK801). At a certain dosage of ketamine, the mice behaved in a way that suggested that they were likely experiencing dissociation. For example, when the animals were placed on an uncomfortably warm surface, they reacted to it by flicking their paws. However, they signaled that they didn't care enough about the unpleasantness to do what they would typically do in such a situation, which is to lick their paws to cool them off. This suggested a dissociation from the surrounding environment.

The drug produced oscillations in neuronal activity in a region of the mices' brain called the retrosplenial cortex, an area essential for various cognitive functions such as navigation and episodic memory (a unique memory of a specific event). The oscillations occurred at about 1-3 hertz (three cycles per second). The authors then examined the active cells in more detail by using two-photon imaging for higher resolution. This revealed that the oscillations were occurring only in layer 5 of the retrosplenial cortex. Next, the researchers recorded neuronal activity across other regions of the brain.

"Normally, other parts of the cortex and subcortex are functionally connected to neuronal activity in the retrosplenial cortex," Ken Solt and Oluwaseun Akeju wrote in Nature. "However, ketamine caused a disconnect, such that many of these brain regions no longer communicated with the retrosplenial cortex."

The scientists then used optogenetics, a method of manipulating living tissue with light to control neural function, to stimulate neurons in the mice's retrosplenial cortex. When the scientists did this at a 2-hertz rhythm, they were able to cause dissociative behavior in the animals analogous to the behavior caused by ketamine without using drugs. The experiments conducted by the team displayed how a particular type of protein, an ion channel, was essential to the generation of the hertz signal that caused the dissociative behavior in mice. Scientists are hopeful that this protein could be a potential treatment target in the future.

What about humans?
The researchers also recorded electrical activity from brain regions in an epilepsy patient who had reported experiencing dissociation immediately before each seizure. The sensations experienced right before a seizure is called an aura. This aura for the patient was like being "outside the pilot's chair, looking at, but not controlling, the gauges," Deisseroth said.

The researchers recorded electric signals from the patient's cerebral cortex and stimulated it electrically aiming to identify the origin point of the seizures. While that was happening, the patient responded to questions about how it felt. The authors found that whenever the patient was about to have a seizure, it was preceded by the dissociative aura and a particular pattern of electrical activity localized within the patient's posteromedial cortex. That patterned activity was characterized by an oscillating signal sparked by nerve cells firing in coordination at 3 hertz. When this region of the brain was stimulated electrically, the patient experienced dissociation without having a seizure.

This study will have far-reaching implications for neuroscience and could lead to better-targeted therapies for disorders in which dissociation can be triggered, such as PTSD, borderline personality, and epilepsy.

To be a great innovator, learn to embrace and thrive in uncertainty
Innovators don't ignore risk; they are just better able to analyze it in uncertain situations.


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By DAVID GREEN
A memorial service is planned Sunday evening to remember two Morenci area teens who died in a house fire early Saturday morning.
Johnathan Pike, 18, a resident of the home at 333 East St. S., and Chelsey Sedlacek, 15, of rural Sand Creek, were unable to escape from the blazing structure and were located by firefighters after the fire was controlled.
Four other family members were treated first at Fulton County Health Center and later at St. Vincent hospital in Toledo.
Pike's step-father, Rick Delaney, 40, and his brothers Matt Delaney, 19, Chris Delaney, 17, and Robert Delaney, 12, were treated for various reasons, including smoke inhalation and burns.
All were discharged, although Robert returned to the hospital and remains at St. Vincent.
Pike's mother, Penny, and younger brother Jay, escaped without injury, along with Matthew Wilson, an overnight guest.
Johnathan's aunt, Robin Pike, credited Matt Delaney with rousing occupants and helping them to safety.
"He's the one who saved the others," she said.
Dan Shaffer, a neighbor of the Delaneys, heard loud voices and saw flames in the windows of the house. He called 911 and the Morenci Fire Department was dispatched at 3:16 a.m. Trucks were en route by 3:22, said fire chief Chad Schisler and they arrived at the scene at 3:25.
A department member who lives nearby was at the scene within two or three minutes, Schisler said, and learned that seven of the nine occupants had escaped.
The fire had spread throughout the house by the time the fire department arrived, Schisler said, with flames coming out the front door, from underneath the front porch and showing in windows on the front and south side of the second story of the wooden structure.
Crews tried to make their way through the front and back doors and into the second story in two locations, Schisler said, in an effort to reach the two victims still in the house.
Schisler was thankful for the assistance by Morenci police chief Larry Weeks who handled the investigation and interviewing of residents and contacted the city supervisor and building inspector for assistance. A Red Cross representative and a state fire marshal were on the scene long before firefighters left shortly after 8 a.m.
Fire departments from Hudson, Fayette, Wauseon, Lyons, Clayton, and Fairfield Township played various roles in the effort, Schisler said.
Chief Weeks said a lot of work remains before a determination of cause is issued by the fire marshal. At this point, he said, there's nothing to indicate the blaze was of a suspicious nature.
Considering the extent of the fire when the occupants were awakened, Weeks said he's amazed and thankful there weren't additional victims.
Schisler was told that most of those who made it out escaped through windows.
Counselors assist grieving students
The hallways and cafeteria were strangely quiet Tuesday at Morenci Area High School, the first day of classes since sophomore Chelsey Sedlacek and 2007 graduate Johnathan Pike died in a house fire.
Pastors, counselors and the county school social worker were on hand to speak with students who were mourning the loss, said counselor Diana Fallot.
"We did OK," she said. "We weren't overwhelmed, but we kept busy. The teachers were great. They gave students the opportunity to talk about the situation or to write a letter."
In some cases staff members approached a student who appeared to be in need and asked if they wanted to talk to someone.
She's heard several students trying to place blame for the tragedy—a common reaction springing from their grief.
"Blame doesn't change things," she said.
Counselors are trying to get students to understand that a tragedy can either "make us stronger or bring us down."
Fallot said many people want to help the Delaneys who have lost their house and possessions, and they've felt frustrated without a clear path to assist.
That situation is changing.
Financial donations can be taken to United Bank and Trust where they will be placed in the Delaney's account.
Robin Pike, a relative of the Delaneys, is accepting donations of furniture and household items. She'll store items in her garage at 8216 W. Weston Rd. until the family is in a new home. They're currently staying in a hotel through arrangements with the American Red Cross.
"Everyone has been really wonderful," Robin said. "A lot of people have called and given their concern."

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome back! I have spent most of the week in Lourdes, France, accompanying the Order of Malta in its Annual International Pilgrimage to the Marian shrine.
This year, Father Jonathan Gaspar, Father Kevin O'Leary and Father Dan Magni were all there accompanying the Order of Malta's group from Boston and the infirm people that they take. I try to accompany them every other year.
Fathers O'Leary and Magni
Father Dan's parish school in Lowell is St. Jeanne d'Arc. He thought the children would get a kick out of this photo.
We flew from Boston to Paris and changed planes to go to the city of Pau. There, Joe Feitelberg met us and drove us to Lourdes.
When we arrived in Lourdes, there was a luncheon with some of the Boston group, then I rested a little bit. In the evening we had the candlelight procession, which was very beautiful.
The procession, as always, had thousands of people holding candles around the plaza and in front of the basilica.
There, I met a priest and a seminarian who had come to Lourdes from Andorra, which is a small mountainous country in the Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain.
The priest told me that he was one of only 12 priests in Andorra and that the bishop is also the prince of Andorra! He said there were 80,000 Catholics there. I had never met anyone from Andorra and I told him I had always wanted to go there.
At the end of the procession they asked me to do the blessing and final prayers. They prayed the various mysteries of the rosary and sang the Lourdes Hymn as well as other hymns.
Then, Saturday morning was the Mass at the Grotto, where 151 years ago St. Bernadette had 18 visions of the Blessed Mother. I preached at the Mass and the whole American group was there. I think there were around 400 people in the American group. We were very blessed to have good weather while we were there.
Karen Murray of our Office for Persons with Disabilities
Ordinarily, Msgr. Dennis Sheehan goes with us as one of the main chaplains of the Knights of Malta, but this year he was having First Communions at Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton and was unable to join us.
I would like to share with you my homily at the grotto:
In the Church of St. Mary's in Charlestown there is a wonderful mural that depicts the Blessed Mother receiving Holy Communion from the hand of St. John the Apostle, the beloved disciple. I am sure that Mary often received communion from St. John. After John received the legacy from the Cross – "Behold your Mother" – John took Mary into his home. From there, Mother was a source of guidance and inspiration to John and the first disciples.
Padre Larrañaga speculates that because of the close relationship of Peter, James and John – Jesus' inner circle – Peter would have been a frequent visitor to John's house and hence to Mary's new home. There is a stunning transformation of Peter from the laughing combination of Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker into the Vicar of Christ, the courageous Peter we read about in Acts and who dies crucified on Vatican Hill. As Mother Angelica says, Peter was a lousy fisherman – he never caught anything unless Jesus was right there saying: 'Throw your net here, now.'
When Jesus was arrested, St. Peter took out his machete to defend the Lord, but was only able to whack off the ear of a servant and then ran for his life. He denies Jesus to a waitress with an attitude, then Peter tried to do what we all do at times – that is to follow Jesus at a safe distance … but when the rooster crowed, he went out and wept bitterly.
Peter's great transformation takes place on Pentecost where Peter and John and the others persevering in prayer with Mary are filled with the Holy Spirit. The frequent contact of Peter with Mary helps Peter to follow Jesus ever closer and to fulfill his vocation: to follow Jesus not at a safe distance, but up close.
Mary is still involved in the life of Jesus' family helping us to be better disciples, more faithful to Jesus' Gospel, more aware of His loving presence in our lives.
One hundred and fifty years ago, a fourteen-year-old peasant girl received a special grace while praying in this very place. Mary the Mother of Jesus appeared to her. There were 18 visions of the Virgin. Bernadette Soubirous was coached by her pastor to ask the woman's name. Mary replies in the dialect of the region: "I am the Immaculate Conception." Four years before these apparitions, Pope Pius IX had defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, that means that Mary had received the singular grace to be conceived without the stain of original sin. This belief about Mary has its origins in the early Church, but it took centuries to be able to develop a philosophical and theological explanation. I am happy to report that Duns Scotus the Franciscan trumped Dominican Thomas Aquinas in coming up with a theological explanation of this ancient dogma. It is like the Red Sox beating the Yankees.
Some people question why the Church had bothered to define these Marian Doctrines like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary. It would be more ecumenical to downplay these teachings. These dogmas however, help us to understand other articles of faith and to understand our own destiny. These dogmas speak to us about the Church's teachings on grace and redemption, the Church's teachings on the dignity of the human body and the resurrection that flows from a life of grace.
Most Catholics confuse the doctrine of the Virgin Birth of Christ and the Immaculate Conception of Mary. I like to explain Mary's Immaculate Conception as her mystical baptism that preserved her from sin, and it was done on a credit card, paid later by Jesus' death and resurrection.
The Scriptures tell us Mary is full of grace. That grace and her faith make her Christ's first disciple, and the new Eve, the new Mother of a redeemed humanity.
To me it is very significant that on this spot where Mary reveals herself as the Immaculate Conception, she makes a spring of fresh water appear, water like the Pool of Siloam with curative powers. I believe there is a message in this for all of us. Sin is the fatal disease which leads to eternal death. In our baptism we are graced and made to be disciples of Jesus Christ. The curative waters of baptism incorporated us into Christ's family, the Church. The processions and pilgrimages that Mary asked for in the apparitions are to give us all the opportunity to renew the grace of baptism, to experience the solidarity of our membership in the Church and to express our faith by our love and concern for the sick and the suffering.
Mary identifies herself by her Immaculate Conception: that miracle of God's love that preserved her from sin and prepared her for her vocation as Mother of the Redeemer.
Today in this holy place, our God asks us, "Who are you?". Let our answer parallel that of Mary who said, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Let us reply that our deepest identity is, "I am a baptized Catholic." The waters of my baptism were, for me, the Jordan, the Red Sea and the water flowing from Christ's wounded side. In my room in Boston, I have a picture of the person who baptized me, Father Jerry Reidy, my uncle. Where would we be without baptism?
But, it is not enough to say: "I am a baptized Catholic." We must live the costly grace of discipleship. The great German Pastor Bonhoeffer often reflected on what he called cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves: the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, communion without confession, grace without the Cross. Cheap grace is an illusion.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field, for the sake of which a person will gladly sell all that he has. It is a pearl of great price for which the merchant sells all his goods to acquire. It is the Kingdom of God for whose sake a man will pluck out his eye that causes him to stumble. It is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him. Costly grace is to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, give our cloak along with our tunic to the one who asks.
Mary is the woman full of grace, full of costly grace. The Gospel prophesizes, "all generations will call me blessed." Indeed, the beatitudes are Jesus' description of His Mother, poor in spirit, meek, pure of heart, thirsty for holiness and justice. Here in Lourdes, Mary gathers us as her children, brothers and sisters to each other and disciples of the Risen Lord.
After being pilgrims here at Lourdes we will return to our communities with a clearer sense of our calling, the gift of our Baptism, the gift of our faith.
And when the Lord asks us if we are going to abandon him and reject His teaching on the Eucharist, as in today's Gospel, strengthened by Mother's love and protection, we can answer as did Peter – "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."
After the Mass we had a meeting with the Grand Master of the Order of Malta, Fra Matthew Festing. He distributed medals to the sick from our group.
Fra Matthew
On Sunday I celebrated Mass with thousands of people in the lower basilica, the basilica of St. Pius X. I'm not sure how many people it holds, maybe 10,000 or 20,000, but it was packed!
I celebrated the Mass in Latin and gave the sermon in French and English. The readings and music were done in many different languages, as well. There were many bishops who concelebrated on Sunday, as well as many priests. As far as American bishops that were with us, there was Bishop of Trenton, Mort Smith; Bishop Frank Rodimer, the former Bishop of Paterson; and Bishop William Curlin the former Bishop of Charlotte.
The Boston group was quite large. Among them were many good friends like Jim and Anne O'Connor; Joe and Sheila Feitelberg; Gus Grace; Nancy Gibson; Sue Downing; and, of course, Hap and Sue Redgate, who were the pilgrimage chairs.
Sue and Hap Redgate
John O'Rourke and Nancy Gibson
I spent Monday as a day of recollection and prayer for myself, and visited several churches. Then we departed to arrive back in Boston on Wednesday.
One of the most moving aspects of Lourdes is always the centrality of the sick pilgrims who are there. I'm sure that many go with the hope of a physical healing; but, even more importantly, I think that the large numbers of people who flock there are looking for spiritual strength and solidarity. There are certainly many conversions there, as well.
Certainly, the care given to the sick in Lourdes is something that is very inspiring and edifying. Many people who were with us were very seriously ill with cancer and life-threatening kinds of illnesses. Compared to other Marian shrines, it has the greatest emphasis on that compassion and service to the sick, and bringing them into contact with God's loving mercy and healing power.
Since we had traveled all night we had not celebrated Mass, the day that we arrived they let us say Mass in a chapel in the basilica. The chapel's walls were completely covered with ex-votos — votive offerings — of people thanking the Blessed Mother for graces received.
The sacrament of reconciliation is also one of the many important activities of the shrine where many, many confessors are always hearing confessions in every language imaginable. It is such a popular place of pilgrimage!
It is interesting that in these days, when Mass participation has dropped off, the numbers of people visiting the pilgrimage sites throughout the world have increased. It shows that people still have a hunger for God and that so many of the people coming to the shrine are not just the active Catholics or the members of the Order of Malta and others like them, but all kinds of people really seeking God.


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Lab Attendance
Lab 1 - Z3292017 (talk) 15:07, 14 March 2013 (EST)
Lab 2 - Z3292017 (talk) 15:03, 21 March 2013 (EST)
Lab 3 - Z3292017 (talk) 15:11, 28 March 2013 (EST)
Individual Assessments
Lab 1
Structural features comparison of the proteomes in the three superkingdoms
Copyright Pancsa and Tompa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
--Mark Hill (talk) 10:32, 9 April 2013 (EST) Relevant article on prokayotes and eukaryotes.
Lab 2
In this study the researchers used Super-Resolution Microscopy in order to attempt to understand the gag proteins and envelope recruitment and how exactly the HIV-1 virus is incorporated into the cell (which was previously not known). They were able to see the GAG assembly sites along with teh HIV-1 envelope proteins in the envelope expressing cells. It was discovered that the envelope accumulation outside of and surrounding the GAG assemblies (rather than directly being in contact with it) was able to assist the spread of the virus in vivo.


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In The CorporationBy Gary Bolles
Technology: Advanced Bandwidth
Massive bandwidth may not be readily available to the average company, but ...
Imagine not having to worry about bandwidth. Imagine that you didn't have to concern yourself with the usual nightmares of wide-area networking, like poorly designed carrier networks that choke the performance out of your mission- critical transmissions. Imagine you could guarantee every user in your company the bandwidth they needed, anywhere in the country. Imagine there was so little latency that you didn't have to worry that a large file transfer would choke your company's pipes. What kinds of strategic applications would you be able to build?
Welcome to the world of advanced networking. This kind of capability not only exists today, it's already in production, connecting hundreds of sites nationwide. Remember Internet2? It was originally a collection of universities attempting to push the envelope for networking to see how a variety of communications problems could be overcome. Not only is it still around, but it's connecting more than 200 U.S. colleges, government sitesand now, corporations.
Today, that network, known as Abilene, is a proving ground for high-bandwidth technologies. And we mean really high: A 2.5 gigabit-per-second cross-country backbone is being upgraded to 10 gigabits per second, with the goal of offering 100 megabits per second of fast-turnaround connectivity between every Abilene-connected desktop. The premise is simple: Make the network invisible so you can focus on other issues, like making applications actually work without bandwidth penalties. "If you get a sufficiently large quantitative leap in performance," says Greg Wood, communications director at Internet2, "you get to do your work in a qualitatively different way." John Jamison, a consulting engineer for research and education at Juniper Networks, agrees: "It's not just, 'What can I do with high bandwidth?' It's, 'What's possible when lots of people get high bandwidth?' "
A number of brand-name corporations The Boeing Co., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnsonare getting into the act as well, leveraging Internet2's fiber backbone for strategic research and development. Though many of these efforts are still focused on traditional R&D, it won't be long before a number of these bleeding-edge capabilities trickle down to the average company, supporting a range of business applications.
Ask Your Network Architect:
Which services we offer today are limited by the bandwidth we have available?
Ask Your Network Gurus:
What technical limitations are we dealing with internally that keep us from leveraging greater bandwidth between our offices?
Ask Your Vendors:
How ready is our current networking equipment for high-bandwidth wide-area connections?
The proving ground for mega-bandwidth networks is in research and development. But there are real-world uses.
Advances in networking are typically driven by bleeding-edge users with appetites for bandwidth that can't be sated. Analysts and academics point to a variety of bandwidth-gobbling applications, typically falling into three categories.
The first is interactive real-time design, such as flight simulation and aerodynamic modeling, architectural and automobile designvirtually any application with thousands of variables that fluctuate from moment to moment. For example, Caterpillar Inc. takes a page out of Star Trek's "holodeck" to design equipment in a virtual reality room known as "The Cave," originally developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago. An engineer moves around in a small room wearing a head-mounted display that simulates a three-dimensional design of, say, a backhoe, peering inside the projection and determining what will and won't work before a single lump of modeling clay is cast. Only a network providing massive bandwidth can handle the sheer volume of data such an application requires.
The second group of mega-bandwidth uses involves gathering and moving around huge chunks of data, such as remote equipment manipulation, oceanographic and seismic sensing, and global data collection from field trials of products such as pharmaceuticals. The Gemini Observatories, twin telescopes perched above the 10,000-feet level in Chile and in Hawaii, can combine to provide a 360-degree view of the night sky. But coordinating the two telescopes has been impossible, and the altitude prevented some researchers from journeying there. Now academics from any Abilene-connected university can manipulate the telescopes via a pipe carrying a minimum of 600 megabits per secondwithout leaving their desks. The results in both cases: Better data, and research money goes to research, not travel.
But the poster child for next-generation networks has always been desktop videoconferencing. We've been hearing for years that we'll have seamless real-time conferencing any day now. Yet high-quality bidirectional video and audio are tremendous bandwidth hogs, clogging local and wide-area networks alike, and few companies can make the case that precious bandwidth resources should be chewed up by an application few see as mission critical.
There's a solution: Argonne National Laboratory's Access Grid Node is a bundle of technologies that can turn a conference room into a virtual meeting venue straight out of a sci-fi movie, allowing up to 30 real-time high-quality video links from around the world to be displayed on screens in real time.
The challenge for corporations, however, is that few are ready to make the investment to expand the high-bandwidth connections in their R&D shops to include their production networks. It's going to take new strategic applications to make it worth upping the performance of its overall network.
Ask Your R&D Department:
Dream a little. What could you do with unlimited bandwidth?
Ask Your Business Users:
Which bandwidth-enabled services could increase your profitability or productivity, or significantly reduce your costs?
Tell Your CFO:
We may not be able to make the business case for greatly increased wide-area bandwidth today. But adding up future application needs may change our plans.
In The Corporation
In The Corporation
As the drivers of high-bandwidth commercialization become clearer, bleeding-edge technologies are slowly migrating to the corporation.
The process for infusing technologies developed through initiatives like Internet2 into products you'll actually be able to buy is anything but direct. It's dependent on the commercial savvy of the universities involved and the relentless focus of startups that can navigate the often-unwieldy process of taking technologies out of the lab.
Take, for example, Chicago-based InSORS Integrated Communications, which has built a commercial version of Argonne's video collaboration product and named it the InSORS Grid. Customers such as Ford and Motorola Inc. have established videoconferencing nodes by leveraging high-bandwidth connections that allow users to conduct real-time discussions comfortably. Brian Gleason, InSORS' director of business development, says his company consolidated Argonne's four servers into one, integrated cameras and displays, and added a gateway for companies that can't support IP multicastingthe ability to broadcast packets to multiple recipients. According to Gleason, traditional low-bandwidth videoconferencing gets only 4 percent to 8 percent use, but high-bandwidth "immersive" videoconferencing rapidly gets infused into the customer's way of communicating internally. "Once they get a real feel for doing this kind of stuff," says Gleason, "it's just a matter of time before it becomes a part of their regular culture."
Once the pathways for real-time video are in place, analysts say, other applications appear, including distance learning for teleworkers and broadcasts of CEO speecheswhat some call "ego-casts." Beyond videoconferencing, though, analysts say a couple of trends are pushing corporations toward advanced networking.
First, the post-Y2K trend of centralizing into downtown data centers is a thing of the past. Redundancy and relocation are the watchwords of today's technology architects. "Suddenly the idea of being all in one building doesn't seem like such a hot idea any more," says Giga Information Group networking analyst Jim Slaby. David Willis, vice president for global networking strategies at Meta Group, agrees. "Separating users from the sources of their data can have a pretty big payoff." That typically means leaving workers in the heart of a city, moving data centers to one or more nearby suburbs, and putting communications connections between sites running at 155 megabits per second and above.
Second, separating storage from servers in storage area networks is just a first step, analysts say. As TCP/IP and Ethernet come to rule the connectivity roost, users will increasingly move storage farther and farther from the users accessing it. And grid computing has the potential to create an even greater distance between computing resources and the applications that run themand increasing the bandwidth needed to keep everything connected. The aim: Greater business flexibility through rapidly readied computing resources and reduced cost of ownership.
Ask Your Vendors:
What would be required for us to support IP multicasting?
Ask Your Travel Department:
How much would we save if we cut down on in-person meetings by, say, a quarter?
Ask Your CEO:
How would you communicate differently with employees if you had these capabilities in place?
Planning Ahead
Planning Ahead
You'll probably be using a variety of capabilities for advanced networks sooner than you think.
Depending on whose numbers you believe, bandwidth usage is starting to inch north again. According to Gartner Inc., even slowly adopting companies are going to experience 15-fold growth in bandwidth use within four years. "Enterprises continue to experience network traffic growth rates in the 35 percent to 50 percent per year range," says Gartner vice president and research director Jay Pultz.
That's a far cry from the days when Internet traffic doubled every 90 days, but it's still a lot of growth, and not every company is prepared for it. "A lot of organizations don't have a good handle on their bandwidth requirements, and they're periodically faced with these bandwidth crises," says Giga's Slaby. "Much of the world spends its time reacting to problems in the network rather than anticipating them."
Analysts say IT departments can help themselves by better managing what they have, reducing bandwidth requirements through caching and other technologies. But sooner or later, you're going to need more bandwidth. That's when people like Don Newell, principal engineer at Intel's network architecture lab in Hillsboro, Ore., come in. He points to four areas that the chipmaker believes are critical for dealing with the sheer volume of corporate bandwidth requirements. IP will continue to grow as the transportation method of choice, taking over communications chores from a raft of proprietary communications protocols. Ethernet will do the same at the cabling level, even potentially overtaking schemes like Fibre Channel for connecting disks at high speed. Intelligence will continue its rapid creep into the network, with numerous pieces of equipment gaining smarts that will let them make decisions about everything from performance to security. And finally, a nonproprietary server architecture will keep servers from being potential bottlenecks in high-speed communications. All this means that you'll continue to see smarter equipment moving into the network at rapidly reduced cost.
But the real value of advanced networking will come when such connections are linked to customers and partners. All the strategic value of high-bandwidth wide-area connections greater flexibility, rapid and better-quality communications, increased ability to gather and analyze dataprovide far more benefit to the organization when enterprise resources can be married to those of other companies. That's one of the clear messages of the Internet2 initiative, where the connected universities are continually inventing new applications to take advantage of bandwidth with few limits.
Ask Your Network Architect:
How does our three-year strategic plan incorporate migration in these directions?
Ask Your Wide-Area Bandwidth ISPS:
Are you prepared to meet our ongoing bandwidth projectionsat a reasonable cost?
Tell Your CFO:
As we devise new ways of leveraging bandwidth, we'll be suggesting a variety of strategic initiatives that will mean continuing investment in upgrading our network.


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The recent changes to
/review has gotten everyone interested in cleaning up the muck. At present, only posts "reviewed" (by clicking on the review link) and actions taken (up/down/close/edit/flag) from within
/review count towards the badge.
However, it is entirely possible that one catches a poor question outside of
/review (e.g., on the front page/tag page, etc.) and "reviews" it and takes some action on it. However, these actions do not count for the badge, at present. In all likelihood, this question would've also been in the
/review queue and if one were fortuitous enough to have reviewed it there, these actions would've counted towards the badge.
Would it be possible to include reviews made outside of
/review to count if the question was also in the review queue? Note that this shouldn't apply if the question dropped out of the queue (either by inaction or after it was edited and improved by previous reviews).


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HAMTRAMCK, Mich. – DEA agents raided a Hamtramck medical facility Wednesday morning.
Sky 4 was over the scene, which is on Joseph Campau Street near Holbrook Street, and video shows agents making an arrest at the Care Max Pharmacy/urgent care.
Investigators didn't immediately release details on what the raid was for.
Stay with Local 4 News and ClickOnDetroit.com for updates to this developing story.
Read more Local News headlines:


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Revolution is always about the bond between family, but for once we got a look at the troubled relationships outside the Matheson clan. So who has bad blood between them? Find out this and six other burning questions from "Ties That Bind." [Spoilers ahead]
Billy Burke to his Twilight co-stars: No Revolution for you!
1. "We're in trouble" When Miles Matheson (Billy Burke) is afraid, you know things are about to go from bad to worse. That's why it comes as no surprise Miles' ominous warning was immediately followed by the discovery the militia was holding Nora's (Daniella Alonso) sister Mia hostage. The price for her release? The pendant and Miles. Fortunately for Miles, Nora isn't exactly interested in a trade (but she is interested in some serious explosives!)
2. California, here we come Never did I think I'd live to see the day a trip to California would be punishment! After Jason (JD Pardo) tries to learn Strausser's (David Meunier) whereabouts, Bass (David Lyons) offers Neville (Giancarlo Esposito) a tough proposition: Jason either goes the 3,000 miles to California (where the Hollywood A-listers have been replaced by murderous "heathens") or he faces execution for treason. Ouch! Not a hard decision if you ask me.
Revolution: Is the militia really that evil? We aren't buying it!
3. Daddy's home Fifteen years after the blackout, explosives enthusiast Nora gets hit with a bomb even she didn't see coming: according to Mia, her dad's alive! But instead of following Mia back to Texas for a joyful family reunion, Nora decides to stick it out with the gang. That is, until Charlie (Tracy Spiridakos) gives a heartfelt speech about what she'd do for one more day with her dad.
Little does Charlie know, but she's got her own presumed-dead parent waiting for her, too! It might not be her dad, but I doubt Charlie will be disappointed when she sees Rachel (Elizabeth Mitchell) again. (And as a rule of thumb from here on out, whenever they say someone's mom or dad is dead, I'm not gonna believe it until I see the corpse.)
4. The rose that grew from concrete Episode 8 was our first real look at Julia Neville (Kim Raver) and from what I can tell, the bitch is bad! With a father like Neville and a mother like Julia, it's amazing Jason even knows what the words "empathy" and "honor" are. Neither Julia nor her husband hesitate before selling out one of their peers to ensure Jason stays right where he is.
Revolution Burning Questions: Finally! Some backstory on the blackout
5. Speaking of heartless... Just as Nora and Mia are starting to get comfortable with each other again, Strausser pops up to mess everything up. But his appearance isn't a simple coincidence. Mia was in cahoots with the militia all along! In exchange for her and Nora's safety, Mia delivers the pendant and the Matheson squad to Strausser on a silver platter.
Adding to the heartbreak, it turns out the whole backstory about finding their dad alive was nothing more than part of the plan to sell out Miles. Yet for some reason, Mia seemed genuinely shocked when Nora ran back to try and save her friends and get away from Mia's total bull. Blood might be blood, but after you try and murder your siblings' friends and lie about whether or not your dad's alive, I don't think family ties matter all that much anymore.
Who Is Rachel? Revolution's Elizabeth Mitchell opens up about her mysterious character
6. General Neville? It looks like Julia might just be the most ambitious of the bunch. After questioning Monroe's mental state and ability to lead, Julia begins projecting her own dreams of glory onto her husband (who seemed perfectly content as a major until his wife started getting too big for her britches).
7. Where the frak are Randall and Grace? It took me a moment after seeing Randall's teched-out evil lair before I realized this isn't Battlestar Galactica — this is Revolution! So where are they and how did he get all those high-tech gadgets? Not to mention, the mysterious mission Randall plans on sending Grace on! This is one of my favorite story lines of the season, yet eight episodes in and we still barely know anything about Grace and her predicament. Hopefully, we'll get a few more answers before it's lights out for Revolution in two weeks (at least until March, but I can't wait that long!)
What did you think of "Ties That Bind"?
Revolution is always about the bond between family, but for once we got a look at the troubled relationships outside the Matheson clan. So who has bad blood between them? Find out this and six other burning questions from "Ties That Bind." [Spoilers ahead]
(Disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.)


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Barton Block Size 6 Ball Bearing Triple Swivel
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- Details
Barton Block Size 6 Ball Bearing Triple Swivel
- This range of high load cruiser blocks are of a rugged construction featuring high quality injection moulded side plates with all load carrying components from 316 Stainless Steel. Side plates are through bolted and riveted for added strength and security. This good looking and versatile range is designed for use on larger cruising and racing yachts.
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|Sheave Size: Single - Fiddle
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|2000 kg
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|1000 kg
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|700 kg
|170 mm
|662 g
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text: As the SMB landscape evolves, companies are changing the way they operate and providing new opportunities for employees. The end user's consumer preferences are increasingly driving the adoption of technology and policies within the workplace. The implementation of BYOD provides greater flexibility and personal choice for individual workers. It has also been proven to increase…Read More


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Compare cheap flights to Russia
Compare and book your cheap flights to Russia with Skiddoo and visit the largest country in world! Choose from our vast selection of flights and travel to great destinations like Moscow, Saint Petersburg and more.
What to do in Russia
Russia is the world's largest country, so you'll have no worries when it comes to sights and attractions during your whole travel. Being a part of both Europe and Asia, you'll get a wonderful mix of culture and diverse landscapes for a truly unique trip.
Seeing the five famous landmarks of Russia is a must for any traveller. Travel to St. Petersburg for the State Heritage Museum complex. Learn more about Russia's history at Moscow's Red Square. Visit the Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Novgorod.
Are you feeling adventurous? The iconic Mount Elbrus has ski slopes, hiking paths, and hot springs for your time outdoors. Feel like you're on an impossible mission when you visit the Kremlin and be impressed by its grandness.
Fly to Moscow and take a dip at the Russian banyas (bathhouses), like the popular Sandunovskye Baths. Go ice-skating in Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure, enjoy a hot air balloon ride at suburban Moscow, and watch the Moscow State Circus too.
There are many other Russian destinations for you to visit. Sochi might be world-famous for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, but it's the country's unofficial summer capital. Visit "Russia's San Francisco", the beautiful city of Vladivostok next. And feed your culture vulture side with all the museums and historical sights at Irkutsk.
Russia has lots of cities worth exploring, but it's also a paradise for nature lovers. Get a taste of the country's outdoors at The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, Ilmen State Reserve, and Central Forest State Nature Biosphere Reserve.
Don't rush your trip to Russia. Plan your trip well with these tips for visiting Russia.
When to visit Russia
Russia is such a massive country that it belongs to two continents and has 11 time zones. So the best time for you to visit depends on where you're going. You can visit Russia in July and August for warmer months, plus you'll get to experience long days which locals call "White Nights." Spring (May-June) and fall (September-October) in Russia are great times to visit too because of fewer crowds.
Before you fly to Russia and visit its cities and regions, you need to get your travel visa because Australians are required to have one before entering Russia. Just go to Smartraveller to get more info. Be sure to pack a good Russian-English phrasebook too.
Travelling to and around Russia
Travelling to Russia is easy because there are several airports in the country. That also means you can easily wander Russia by plane, and by riding the train, boat, and bus.
Mother Russia is calling you. Answer the call and get your passport ready so you can book your flights to Moscow with Skiddoo today!


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Leading the Charge
The fourteen teams of the International League will once again be piloted by an experienced group of field managers in 2009. This year's crop of IL skippers has won over 12,000 games combined in the Minor Leagues.
A new affiliation with the Mets brings a new skipper to Buffalo in Ken Oberkfell, who has managed New York's Triple-A club in Norfolk (2005-06) and New Orleans (2007-08).
Read about each team's leader: CLICK HERE!
All four managers from the 2008 Governors' Cup playoffs are back for another run at the IL's postseason championship. The playoff managers won't be the only familiar faces in International League dugouts this season. In fact, thirteen of the fourteen skippers have previously managed in the IL, including eleven who were in the League in 2008. In an interesting twist though, only eight managers are returning to the same city in which they served last year, thanks in part to the Major League affiliation shuffle this past offseason.
With such a high level of Triple-A experience in every one of the IL dugouts this season, 2009 is sure to be an exciting year. The League will also open two brand new facilities this season in Columbus (Huntington Park) and Gwinnett (Gwinnett Stadium). As the season unfolds, only time will tell who will become the 77th manager to have his name etched on the Governors' Cup trophy.
Manager release courtesy: International League


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A Celebration of Women™
is honored to Celebrate the Life of this woman, one that has risen above one of our planet's most horrific inhumanities to woman; sexual slavery and human trafficking. Using her experience and survival skills, this powerhouse now devotes her life to the freedom of all young women and girls to speak out fearlessly, shamelessly to STOP THE VIOLENCE Against Women and Girls.
WOMAN of ACTION™
Somaly Mam
Born to a tribal minority family in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, Somaly Mam began life in extreme poverty. With limited options as a severely marginalized ethnic group, and living in unimaginable despair, her family often resorted to desperate means to survive. This confluence of dire circumstances led to Somaly being sold into sexual slavery at a very young age.
Somaly was forced to work in a brothel along with other women and children for many years, and was brutally tortured and raped. One night, she was made to watch as her best friend was viciously murdered. Deciding then that she would no longer "keep her silence," Somaly heroically escaped her captors and began to build a new life abroad.
But she vowed never to forget those she left behind, and soon returned to Southeast Asia.
She dedicated her life's work to saving victims, building shelters and programs for healing, and empowering survivors to become agents of change. In 1996, Somaly established a Cambodian non-governmental organization called AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire).
Under Somaly's leadership, AFESIP employs a holistic approach that ensures victims not only escape their plight, but have the emotional and economic strength to face the future with hope. With the launch of the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007, Somaly has established a funding vehicle to support anti-trafficking organizations and to provide victims and survivors with a platform from which their voices can be heard around the world. Somaly estimates that she and her team have assisted over 7,000 victims to date.
Universally recognized as a visionary for her courage, dignity, ingenuity, and resilience, Somaly has been honored as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2009 and as a CNN Hero.
She is also the recipient of the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (WCPRC), Glamour Magazine's 2006 Woman of the Year Award, one of Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women in 2011, one of Fast Company's 2012 League of Extraordinary Women, and has won accolades from the US Department of Homeland Security and her work recognized by the US Department of State.
She has been a guest on the Tyra Banks show, Fox and Friends, America's Most Wanted, and was featured on Oprah and CNN. She has participated in the World Economic Forum at Davos and DLD conference, the 2011 Newark Peace Summit (alongside the Dalai Lama) and conferences including Imagine Solutions, Womenetics, EG, and Crimes Against Children.
But Somaly's success has come at a price.
She and her family have faced terrifying death threats and violence. Asked why she continues to fight in the face of such fierce and frightening opposition, Somaly resolutely responds, "I don't want to go without leaving a trace." Despite the fact that she is known the world over and has certainly earned a life of luxury and repose, Somaly continues to spend most of her time in the Cambodian recovery centers with the women and children she rescues, staying by their side as they walk the difficult path to recovery and freedom.
Somaly Mam and the Somaly Mam Foundation has saved over 7000 girls and women from the sex slavery trade since Somaly began her crusade back in 1994.
Somaly Mam herself a victim of the sex slave trade since the age of fourteen escaped in 1990 from the brothel she was enslaved to (and served for over a decade), where she would be repeatedly gang raped, tortured, and a witness to vicious murders at the hands of her captors, whilst living in a cage and only to be released to solicit for more money as a prostitute on a daily basis.
However despite all of these atrocities Somaly's story is one of hope, inspiration love and support to both put an end to the sex slave and human trafficking industry and the women afflicted by its cruelties.
In our Cambodian regional anti-trafficking radio program called "Somaly's Family," Voices For Change leaders address the issue of modern slavery head-on, taking calls from community members and victims, and featuring special guests like lawyers and policy experts. Costs for keeping this innovative and crucial program running can include studio rental, airtime, and hosting. Give today, and help us keep this program on the air through 2013. Clip courtesy of Show of Force/ Half the Sky Movement.
The "Somaly's Family" Anti-Trafficking Radio Show
Somaly Mam, her life story and her crusade has drawn the attention of the world's media to shine its light on her movement. Aside from changing the lives of girls and women, her cause has seen her be the recipient of international acclaim such as the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation, twice being recognized as being in the 100 most influential women of the world, Glamour Magazines' Woman of the Year and Forbes Magazine most Powerful Woman in 2011 and the Mony Saraphorn Medal presented by the King of Cambodia.
The Somaly Mam Foundation today has firmly cemented its place on the global stage and includes high profile board members such as Susan Sarandon, Daryl Hannah, Ron Livingston, Laurie Holden & Petra Nemcova on the foundation's Global Advisory Board and Brandee Barker as one of the Board of Directors, as well as being acknowledged by the United Nations and the foundation's shelter being visited by Hillary Clinton.
The Somaly Mam Foundation has three main goals:
1. First and foremost the protection of victims
2. Implementing a victim-centered approach via holistic care and without discrimination welcome any person who desires to leave sex slavery conditions to reside in one of the AFESIP residential centers. Ensures the women they assist not only escape for good, but have both strong emotional and economic strength to face their new life with hope and optimism.
3. To attain the long-term goal of helping these victims of sex slavery and trafficking to reintegrate back into society without discrimination
Along with adversities, dangers, death threats, sadness and cruelties thought out the foundations ongoing crusade, there has also been many times of joy and celebration; reinforcing hope since Somaly's escape and the creation of her foundation.
Stories of helping girls to escape, supporting and educating them and helping them to integrate back into society on a high social standing. Recently the foundation celebrating the graduation from law school by one of the girls they saved.
"People ask me how I can bear to keep doing what I do. I'll tell you. The evil that's been done to me is what propels me on. Is there any other way to exorcise it?"
Somaly Mam has written her autobiography The Road of Lost Innocence and with the support of Anita Roddick of the Body Shop they delivered a signed petition to the United Nations to end child sex slavery and trafficking with over seven million signatures.
Today, the Somaly Mam Foundation promotes its global awareness campaign to international governments and organizations throughout the globe.
It has united the international community of media, entertainment, internet communities and schools to support their campaign to end human trafficking and sex slavery. The foundation is now operating throughout Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, its organization has save over 7000 girls and women to trade and is the largest organization (with the support of over a dozen smaller human rights organizations) to combat and stamp out the human trafficking and sex slavery industry in South East Asia.
While travelling throughout the world promoting her crusade Somaly Mam stays in close contact with her girls, saying she stays in touch via Skype and is happiest when she has the girls near her because they return the love tenfold.
Somaly Mam's success and crusade has come at a high price. Her personal ordeals, gang rapping's, torture, death threats and violence against her are horrific. So when asked why she continues to fight for her cause her response is that she doesn't want to go without leaving a trace.
Both in her own resolute strength and her compassionate heart, Somaly Mam is a living inspiration of overcoming extraordinary hardship and instead of seeing herself as a victim (which she has every reason to) she has used these experiences to be a light, hope and inspiration to all mankind.
Somaly Mam is extraordinary.
We look forward to continue writing about her, celebrating her crusade and her dream of ending child and women sex slavery in the world to be mission accomplished.
You can do your part today in helping by paying forward this story about Somaly Mam, her achievements and how despite incredible adversities she continues the fight to make the world a better place.
The Somaly Mam Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to ending modern slavery and empowering its survivors as part of the solution. Human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.
With an estimated two million women and children sold into sexual slavery each year, it is a global crisis that must be stopped.
Co-founded by sex slavery survivor Somaly Mam, the Foundation works to eradicate sex slavery, liberate its victims, and empower survivors to create and sustain lives of dignity and as agents of next-generation change. The Foundation supports rescue operations, shelter services, and rehabilitation programs in Southeast Asia, where the trafficking of women and young girls is widespread.
The Somaly Mam Foundation also runs awareness and advocacy campaigns that shed light on the crime of human trafficking, spotlight its brave survivors as living examples of change, and engage the public, business sectors, and governments in the fight to abolish modern slavery.
The founding of the Somaly Mam Foundation was made possible by circumstance, when trafficking survivor and activist Somaly Mam crossed paths with two Americans determined to help build global awareness and support for the fight against child slavery.
In early 2007, friends and Air Force Academy graduates, Jared Greenberg and Nicholas Lumpp, became aware of a growing international crisis. The sex slave trade had developed into the third most profitable criminal industry, behind only narcotics and weapons. Governments had yet to effectively handle the problem, and funding for organizations fighting the illegal trade was minimal.
Disturbed by the public's lack of awareness of these ongoing atrocities, Jared and Nicholas decided it was time to Take Action and help put an end to sexual slavery, once and for all. But with an industry that generates $12 billion a year, enslaves millions of young women and children, and is protected by corrupt government and law enforcement officials, they had their work cut out for them.
"They told me they could help me to find a job, and my family was poor and needed food. The job turned out to be in a brothel. I was forced to take 20 to 30 clients a day, and was denied food or tortured if I refused or asked for a break. The money went straight back to the brothel owner, to pay off my 'debt' for room and board. They threatened to find me and kill me if I left."
Human trafficking is considered the world's second largest, fastest growing 'organized crime'. The International Labor Organization estimates up to 20.9 million people toiling as modern slaves around the globe, and UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are sold every year. The ILO estimates that 55 percent of forced labor victims are women and girls, as are 98 percent of sex trafficking victims.
The human trafficking business is a multi-billion dollar industry. Sex trafficking alone is estimated to generate $7 billion per year, but INTERPOL believes the number to be closer to $19 billion.
The Asia Pacific region (which includes South Asia) has the largest number of victims in forced labor – 11.7 million. Additionally, 55 percent of forced labor victims are estimated to be women and girls, as are 98 percent of sex trafficking victims. Virgins are sold for an average of $482 (and as little as $200). The average client pays $5 for services.
These numbers are startling, and this global crisis necessitates a global response.
The Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) is working to end these atrocities through direct services for victims, survivor-driven advocacy, strategic multidisciplinary partnerships, and mass media and online platforms. Somaly Mam, a survivor and present-day activist, speaks at conferences, summits, and universities worldwide to share her story and address her solution: empowering survivors as the next generation of change-makers.
Together, we are committed to building a world free from slavery: a reality that we truly believe is possible in our lifetime.
Click here to learn more about our approach.
Srey was then taken to a center for recovery and skills training. In addition to safety and protection, the centers offer medical and psychological assessments, evaluations of educational level and social development, childcare, and legal assistance.
As Somaly often says, "It can take five minutes to save a girl from the brothel, but it can take five years – or ten, or more – to recover them."
Fate intervened a few months later when Jared and Nicholas viewed an online video clip of Anderson Cooper 360 and saw a show spotlighting an extraordinary woman by the name of Somaly Mam. Sold into slavery at a young age, she later escaped and made it her mission to rescue and rehabilitate other victims and help them to reintegrate into their communities with economic and emotional independence and hope.
The result was AFESIP, an organization that has transformed the lives of thousands of victims of the illegal trade since its inception in 1996.
Somaly is now regarded as one of the most prolific activists fighting sexual slavery.
Jared and Nicholas hopped on a plane and traveled into the center of the sex slave industry. They talked with Somaly Mam, toured facilities, and met some of the young women who had been rescued. The experience changed their lives. Yet they realized that many people around the world do not know this industry even exists.
Increasing awareness and funding organizations like AFESIP seemed paramount to combating the illegal trade. Then, during an inspiring conversation on a car ride from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap, Somaly explained her vision for a U.S. based organization that would take her life's passion to the next level: to expand and improve victim services, to prevent trafficking with grassroots advocacy and education, and to provide a platform for the survivor voice to be heard around the world.
The Somaly Mam Foundation was born.
Our Vision: A world where women and children are safe from slavery.
Our Mission: To give victims and survivors a voice in their lives, liberate victims, end slavery, and empower survivors as they create and sustain lives of dignity.
The Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in the USA and is incorporated in Canada.
Thanks to The Xtraordinary
A Celebration of Women™
welcomes this wonderful tower of experience, strength and hope into our Alumni with open arms, and look forward to advocating her work, celebrating her victories and creating positive change in our world, together.
Brava Somaly!
Somaly Mam – WOMAN of ACTION™
April 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment


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EVANGELIST Luis Palau vividly remembers the death of his father. He was just 10, his father 34. The successful businessman was struck down by pneumonia.
''There was no penicillin in Argentina in those days, at end of World War II,'' recalls Palau on the phone from his home in Portland, Oregon.
''He died singing, clapping his hands and saying, in the words of Saint Paul in the Bible, 'I'm going to be with Jesus, which is better by far', and he was gone.
''I said to myself, you know, this is the way people should die – singing and knowing where they're going. That's when I started thinking that I should help as many people as I can to meet God and to have the assurance of eternal life.''
Now 77, Palau is upfront about his bumpy spiritual path which saw him rebel as a teenager while attending an Anglican boarding school in his birthplace of Buenos Aires.
''We have a carnival week, you know, just before holy week begins, before Easter,'' says Palau, whose responses are coloured by his Spanish accent and liberal use of the Americanism ''you know''.
''You party like crazy because then you have to behave and repent. I was 17 and getting ready to goof off with some of my friends and I felt that if I kept going this way, too much partying, too much drinking, I was going to mess up my life. It was time to shape up once and for all.
''I was at my grandmother's home and I felt I should get serious with God. I knelt by the bed and I said, 'God, get me out of this dance, this whole weekend, so I don't stumble and do something really foolish'. He gave me the heart to change; I started over with God.''
Palau, the founder and CEO of the Luis Palau Association – his 49-year-old son Kevin is the president – has now shared the gospel with more than 25million people in 70 countries. Before settling in the United States in 1972 with his American wife Patricia, whom he met while studying theology at Multnomah University in Oregon, Palau was known as the Billy Graham of Latin America.
His festivals attract thousands of people; as many as 425,000 at a two-day event in Guatemala City in 2009 and 80,000 over two days in Sacramento in June. More than 25,000 people are expected to flock to the Newcastle Foreshore this weekend for CityFest, a free event during which Palau and his son Andrew will preach.
''He preaches the gospel just like I do, only he does it better,'' boasts Palau of his 47-year-old son (he has four children, all sons).
''To be quite honest, more people come to Christ when he's preaching than when I am,'' he laughs. ''Maybe he learnt from watching not what to do. He is really gifted; this isn't something you create, you don't manipulate a person [to become a preacher].''
Palau believes the ability to evangelise is a gift from God.
''The Bible puts it that it's a gift of the Holy Spirit,'' he says.
''You have a passion to reach out to people in need, and it takes empathy to understand people and to love them and not despise them just because of their behaviour. And you also then try to communicate deep truths but in a simple fashion. You have to be able to communicate with people of all levels, from the highly educated to children.
''It's also the ability to communicate the good news in a winning fashion to people who are not used to it. An evangelist stands at the door of the kingdom of God and says, 'Come in, come in'.''
Andrew Palau's decision to become an evangelist echoes that of Billy Graham's son Franklin, who also initially turned his back on his father's crusades.
''He [Andrew] just wanted to party, he wasn't interested in spiritual things,'' remembers Palau, who remains close to the ailing 94-year-old Billy Graham. The leader opened doors for Palau in the US.
''Then at 27, we were having a festival in Kingston, Jamaica, and Andrew attended. He wasn't there to go to church or Christian events; he was going to fish, play tennis, meet girls, and drink Jamaican beer. Then on the closing night, God spoke to his conscience and his heart and he truly repented and gave his life to Christ.
''He was wild; he was in the world, as we say. Then his life turned around; he met a beautiful Jamaican girl and they married and have two boys and adopted a little girl from Ethiopia.''
Palau has no doubt Andrew can fill his shoes and he has focused on ensuring that the Luis Palau Association will continue after his death. ''If I should go down tomorrow, we feel the team can go forward,'' he says.
''My sons are developing their own relationships, building connections. We are at peace, my wife and I, that if we shut down our own work tomorrow, it will go on. I will start to slow down ever so slightly, which will please Pat. We've been married 51 years and we worked out we've been separated 17 years with all my travelling and working.
''Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but you also have to be careful because you can grow distant.''
Palau is full of praise for Billy Graham, who counselled US presidents from Eisenhower to Bush.
''I met him when Pat and I were just married, way back in 1962. He was having one of his crusades in California and I volunteered with my wife. One day he had a breakfast when he was in town with all his team members and volunteers, and it just worked out that I sat smack bang in front of him. I didn't request it, it just happened this way.
''He asked me questions, encouraged me and stayed in touch with me. He gave me opportunities to preach – as a young fellow I had no right to it – but God evidently wanted him to do it for me. He gave me superb advice. He's a very transparent man; all of his life he's kept above reproach, kept his nose clean financially, personally. He's one of those men, you can't point the finger at a single mistake. I have always tried to follow his lead; be as transparent and as honest as you can, don't change your message, which should remain constant and strong.
''I revere him.''
Like Graham, Palau is determined to reach out to people from all walks of life. He will hold festivals – updated versions of Graham's crusades featuring skateboarding and music events for young people – in Alaska next year and New York City in 2014. He has great affection for Australia and regards Newcastle fondly having preached here in 1979 and 1982. He also made a short visit last December to begin work on CityFest, which has united churches throughout the Hunter and enlisted the support of 750 volunteers.
''I'm looking forward to meeting your new mayor Jeff McCloy,'' says Palau after asking about the weather.
''A successful business with a love for the community is a good combination.''
While more than happy to meet politicians and world leaders, Palau remains tight-lipped about his own politics and believes that they have no place on the stage.
''Being brought up in Argentina, where politics was very dangerous, I learnt very early on that a person like me should abstain completely from political activity.
''I think clergy can speak about moral issues, but when you get into partisan politics then it's certainly not for a person like me, and in my opinion any Christian clergyman, to speak publicly. You can be a believer in Jesus and vote for whatever party you want. I don't have an answer from God about who should be president. You vote as your conscience dictates.''
Our phone chat happens on the eve of the United States presidential elections and Palau, who has already sent off his postal vote, is eager to overturn the popular perception that being Christian in the US automatically means one is Republican voter.
''The studies show that 55per cent of Americans who came to be followers of Jesus vote for the Democratic party; it has always been the party of the working man. There are 45million Latin Americans in the USA and they tend to vote Democratic, not because they aren't conservative in their personal lifestyle, but because they feel the Democratic party serves their needs better than the Republican party.''
He also abstains from commenting on social issues such as gay marriage. He says he doesn't belong to one particular denomination, but ''works with all of them''.
''I am asked often [to comment], but I truly feel that when an issue is politicised, I definitely must stay away. I want to draw people to God, I don't want to alienate people. When issues get politicised, the emotions get very high, people can get angry before they hear you out.''
Could his decision be interpreted as cowardly?
''It's not cowardice, it's just wisdom,'' he counters without a hint of tension.
''A person in my position should not get involved in emotional issues; people can make their own decisions, they're pretty bright. Read the scriptures for yourself and make your own decision.''
This year, Palau and Patricia returned to the church in Buenos Aires where he was first encouraged to preach to help celebrate its 75th anniversary. The Rincon Church is interdenominational and was a pivotal factor in guiding Palau.
''They took me in as a teenager looking for direction, baptised me and taught me. I learnt the Bible, I practised preaching on street corners.''
Palau then joined forces with three ''buddies'' and started a daily lunchtime radio program.
''We'd make comments on the news of the day, you know, if there'd been a plane crash, or world event, then give a little Christian application to it.''
Palau was only 19. The young men then appealed to ''three business fellows'' in the congregation and asked them to buy a large tent that they used to host a summer of Christian meetings for children and adults.
His big break came while working at the Bank of London in Buenos Aires as a 25-year-old.
''Two Americans came by and because I spoke English, I helped them. One had been a missionary to China and a prisoner under Mao Zedong and the other a minister in California. We chatted and they encouraged me to study in the US and got some business people to provide the cash. My mother said, 'All right, go' and I went to Oregon to study a one-year graduate course in theology and that's where I met Pat.''
The couple married and travelled as missionaries to Costa Rica for four years before moving on to Columbia and Mexico. Palau has always been keen to engage people through the media – be it TV, radio, and now Twitter and Facebook.
''My team members who are younger do that job [social media], you know, I am an old guy,'' he laughs.
''It really is amazing; it's kind of exciting, actually. It's a new day and you've got to adapt to it and we're learning, we're learning, yeah!''
CityFest is a free event this weekend at the Newcastle Foreshore. Kids' activities start at noon. Luis Palau will preach from 7.15 each night. His son, Andrew, will preach tomorrow from 5pm. See luispalaucityfest杭州夜网m.
CHARISMA: Luis Palau's festivals attract tens of thousands of people.


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GDP, greed, stock market, stock market crash, U.S, U.S. debt, U.S. Economy, United States, Wall Street
What do 1929, 2000 and 2007 all have in common? Those were all years in which we saw a dramatic spike in margin debt. In all three instances, investors became highly leveraged in order to "take advantage" of a soaring stock market. But of course we all know what happened each time. The spike in margin debt was rapidly followed by a horrifying stock market crash. Well guess what? It is happening again. In April (the last month we have a number for), margin debt rose to an all-time high of more than 384 billion dollars. The previous high was 381 billion dollars which occurred back in July 2007. Margin debt is about 29 percent higher than it was a year ago, and the S&P 500 has risen by more than 20 percent since last fall. The stock market just continues to rise even though the underlying economic fundamentals continue to get worse. So should we be alarmed? Is the stock market bubble going to burst at some point? Well, if history is any indication we are in big trouble. In the past, whenever margin debt has gone over 2.25% of GDP the stock market has crashed. That certainly does not mean that the market is going to crash this week, but it is a major red flag.
The funny thing is that the fact that investors are so highly leveraged is being seen as a positive thing by many in the financial world. Some believe that a high level of margin debt is a sign that "investor confidence" is high and that the rally will continue. The following is from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal…
The rising level of debt is seen as a measure of investor confidence, as investors are more willing to take out debt against investments when shares are rising and they have more value in their portfolios to borrow against. The latest rise has been fueled by low interest rates and a 15% year-to-date stock-market rally.
Others, however, consider the spike in margin debt to be a very ominous sign. Margin debt has now risen to about 2.4 percent of GDP, and as the New York Times recently pointed out, whenever we have gotten this high before a market crash has always followed…
The first time in recent decades that total margin debt exceeded 2.25 percent of G.D.P. came at the end of 1999, amid the technology stock bubble. Margin debt fell after that bubble burst, but began to rise again during the housing boom — when anecdotal evidence said some investors were using their investments to secure loans that went for down payments on homes. That boom in margin loans also ended badly.
Posted below is a chart of the performance of the S&P 500 over the last several decades. Every time margin debt has soared to a dramatic new high in the past, a stock market crash and a recession have always followed. Will we escape a similar fate this time?
What makes all of this even more alarming is the fact that a number of things that we have not seen happen in the U.S. economy since 2009 are starting to happen again. See 12 Clear Signals That The U.S. Economy Is About To Really Slow Down: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/12-clear-signals-that-the-u-s-economy-is-about-to-really-slow-down
At some point the stock market will catch up with the economy. When that happens, it will probably happen very rapidly and a lot of people will lose a lot of money.
Unfortunately most Americans rely on the mainstream media to do much of their thinking for them. They will never see the colossal collapse coming!
Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/whenever-margin-debt-goes-over-2-25-of-gdp-the-stock-market-always-crashes


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Welcome to Andy Abraham's History of the Big Bands Tour! Prepare to be taken on a musical journey back to the era of swing with Andy Abraham and his incredible 13 piece swing band. Your evening will be filled with toe tapping tunes from the ages of the most memorable big band leaders including Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and many more.
Enjoy being transported back to the time every dance hall was a ballroom filled with the swinging pulse of the rhythm section to the cool whirr of the brass players. The unforgettable songs that have stood the test of time such as In the Mood, Take the A-Train and Opus One will feature in this spectacular evening. Don't get excited; get very excited for an extraordinary evening of musical theatre, glamour and romance with UK's leading Swing Orchestra and the smooth swinging vocals of UK's most loved soul artist, Andy Abraham.
Make an enquiry
Visit Andy Abraham's website


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SOMERSWORTH – Members and guests of the Greater Somersworth Chamber of Commerce will meet for a Business Before Hours at Service Credit Union on Tuesday, March 12 from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. at 15 Penny Lane in Somersworth.
Service Credit Union was founded in 1957 to provide financial services for U.S. Armed Forces personnel. The credit union was originally chartered to serve the military and civilian employees at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire. Today, Service Credit Union provides financial services to over 165,000 members residing all across the U.S. and around the world. With corporate headquarters located in Portsmouth, Service Credit Union has numerous branches throughout New Hampshire including branches in Rochester, Exeter, and Hampton.
Chamber members are encouraged to bring a guest for this before-hours networking event. For planning purposes, please register by calling the Somersworth Chamber of Commerce at 603-692-7175 or online at the Chamber website www.somersworthchamber.com. The Somersworth Chamber is dedicated to supporting and promoting business growth and development in the region by providing promotional services and networking opportunities to its membership.